Ruby Psychological Services

06/05/2026

Who can tell us 3 nice things about themselves?

02/05/2026

“Stop gaslighting yourself into thinking you’re lazy, when you’re really exhausted AF from the trauma and grief you’ve endured.”

- Dr. Jen via Twitter

Rest. Buy yourself flowers. Eat fresh fruit (the brain runs on glucose). Take a walk. Focus on taking in only those things which awaken your soul. Soak in a tub filled with flower petals, essential oils and mineral salts. Have a weekend blackout on all things media. Surround yourself with the provocation of all things sensual; soft, decadent fabrics, whatever moves your Spirit; music that you love, scents that enthrall you, books that feed your enthusiasm, beautiful art.

FILL YOUR LIFE AND SOUL WITH BEAUTY

Just for this week, be the bee settling on all of the best flowers.

Love yourself deeply, and remember who and what you really are.

❤️

"Ophelia"
Mixed Media
2022

01/05/2026

Definitely worth reflecting on….

I want to talk about the most common "libido killer" I see in my practice. The husband (usually) who prioritises his leisure time above his wife’s sanity. He finishes work and "needs to unwind" watching tv or playing video games. She finishes work and begin her "second shift" of housework, cooking and cleaning and childcare. He gets a Saturday morning of golf; she gets a Saturday morning of grocery shopping, managing the domestic chaos and driving the children to different events and sports...

This isn't just an "unfair" schedule. It is a Relational Breach.

When a partner consistently prioritises their leisure over your labour, they are telling your nervous system that your rest is optional. This creates a state of Chronic Sympathetic Activation for the wife. You are always "on," always managing, and always resentful.

From a Jungian perspective, this is a total collapse of the "Sacred Marriage" of equals. The wife has been cast as the Atlas, the one who holds up the world so he can play in it. When he eventually approaches her for intimacy at 10:00 PM, herr body reacts with the "Ick" or a total Somatic Shutdown. This happens because her body knows that "intimacy" in this context is just another demand on her already depleted resources. It’s not a connection; it’s another service he's requesting.

We call this the Equity-Desire Connection. For a woman to move into a state of Ventral Vagal safety (where desire actually lives), she must feel that she is in a partnership of mutual care. If you feel like a "resource" to be used rather than a human to be cherished, your brain will protect you by shutting down your s*xual response. It is a Somatic Protest. Your libido hasn't "gone missing"; it’s on strike until the conditions of the contract change.

Rather than pathologising "low desire" as a female dysfunction we often need to look at it as Structural Failure.

Look at the "Leisure Gap" in your house. If he has eight hours of "me time" a week and you have twenty minutes in the shower, the maths doesn't work.

Try naming it-- "When you prioritise your golf/gaming over my need for rest, I feel like it is making it impossible for me to feel like your partner."

You cannot "attract" a woman you are actively exhausting.

Are you "low libido," or are you just the only one who doesn't get a break? Intimacy thrives in equity, not in a hierarchy where your rest comes last. Let’s stop pathologising your exhaustion and start looking at the "Leisure Gap."

Photography- Brooke Didonato

30/04/2026

27/04/2026

There have been things you contended with in the past that you couldn’t see a way through…and you did. The path ahead leads to magical and amazing things…you can make it through the ‘character development’ chapters ❤️‍🔥🧡💕

24/04/2026

Burnout doesn’t always look like stopping.
Sometimes it looks like carrying on.

We often expect burnout to look dramatic.
Crying. Collapsing. Walking away.

But more often it looks quiet.

It looks like:
• no motivation, even for things you used to love
• insomnia or broken sleep
• feeling emotionally overwhelmed by small things
• deep, bone-level exhaustion
• anxiety that feels louder than usual
• being more easily triggered than you recognise yourself to be

And because you’re still showing up, you tell yourself:
“I’m fine.” “I’ll push through.” “Others have it worse.”

Burnout doesn’t mean you don’t care.
It usually means you’ve cared for too long without enough support.

Especially in worlds where responsibility never switches off. Where living beings depend on you. Where rest feels like a luxury instead of a necessity.

Burnout isn’t a failure of resilience. It’s a signal from your nervous system saying: Something needs to change.

Not everything. Not forever.

But something.

Sometimes the bravest thing isn’t pushing on. It’s pausing long enough to listen.

You don’t need to wait until you break to take yourself seriously.

Burnout isn’t weakness. It’s information.

🤍

11/04/2026

We absolutely agree with this message from The New Feminist (posted for last year’s Trans Day of Visibility). We echoed these concerns in our recent blog for , highlighting how anti-trans narratives affect the wider LGBTQ community, harm women and open the door to persecution of other marginalised groups. Thank you so much, TNF, for sharing this 🩵🩶💛💗 We firmly believe in the importance of standing united against the harm and threats that affect us all.
Find our blog here: https://notinourname.org.uk/all-women-must-stand-together-on-international-womens-day/
Sign our open letter here: https://notinourname.org.uk/petition/not-in-our-name-women-in-support-of-the-trans-community/

10/04/2026

Alcohol is a tricky thing for lots of people …..

Three years without a drink this week. Celebrated my birthday with my family and an orange juice and soda (pint!).

Things I have replaced it with: fizzy water, decaf tea, reading, running, increasing obsession with music.

Things I don’t miss: being sick, wondering what I did last night, finding out what I did last night, shame, the self-hatred of hungover parenting, wondering if people know I’m still drunk, thinking about the next time I drink and knowing that time it will be amazing, wondering why other people can just have two, nightclubs.

I feel so incredibly lucky to have stopped. If you wish too, then it is possible. Speak to people you know who have, they will happily bore you senseless about it.